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Aug142017

5 Crafty Steps to Craft Fair Vendor Success

Attention, all artisans: craft fair season in full swing! A creative activity for people of all ages, craft fairs draw a large crowd of potential buyers. Whether you’re a long-time vendor or a fresh-faced newbie, here are five ways to set your booth apart from the rest.

Work the angles. It’s important to remember that due to the layout and nature of craft fairs, people will be coming from all directions, not just from the front of your booth. That means you need to approach your booth from every angle and ask yourself if people can tell what you’re selling, no matter where they are. If possible, try to have an oversized display for people who are at a distance, such as a high-quality print of an eye-catching piece.

Give them some space—literally and figuratively. People don’t like to be crowded or feel cornered. That means setting up your booth with enough room for people to get around without bumping into tables or each other. It also means resisting the urge to pile on every piece you have to cover all available space. Such an approach can be overwhelming to buyers and leave them with no space to put down their bags to browse. On another level, this means hanging back and letting buyers look without feeling pressured by you to buy something. A simple hello and offer to answer any questions will do. If your crafts aren’t easily identifiable, you should have two or three succinct sentences on hand to explain them.

Don’t make cash king. While there’s a certain old-fashioned, traditional vibe to being a cash-only business, it’s not worth the sales you’ll lose. The majority of people don’t carry cash anymore, and you’ll find yourself losing out on sales if you don’t accommodate them. Even if you do find some buyers with cash, you’re limiting how much they can spend by making it dependent upon how much money they’ve brought, cheating you out of potentially higher individual sales. It’s worth the small investment to make your phone or tablet capable of processing cards.

Set reasonable prices. You worked hard on your crafts, and you should be compensated as such; no one expects you to lose money or simply break even. However, you also need to be realistic about what your products are worth and the environment you’re in. People don’t often go to craft fairs prepared to pay retail store prices. They’ve come to find hidden gems at practical prices. If you’re unsure of how to price your items, do some research at similar booths and online craft retailers before the big day comes.

Let them see what they’re missing. The only thing that can ruin the euphoric feeling of selling out of one of your pieces is the knowledge that you’re missing out on sales of it for the rest of the day. Many vendors simply apologize but assume they can’t do more than that given time constraints. Don’t make this mistake and miss that sale. Keep display-only pieces or high-quality pictures of your most-likely-to-sell-out products at the ready. You can offer to mail it to the buyer and decide whether you should charge for shipping based on size and distance. Alternatively, you can let them know when your next show appearance will be and offer to hold it for them if they’re willing to pay upfront.

Once craft fair season wraps up, contact Secure Self Storage for a secure, affordable way to store your handmade wares.